Should i separate Pivot tables for each feature in laravel? - php

Question

I'm building review product application where there are 3 database tables
- Review
- Categories
- Affiliates
At first i created a pivot table with 2 entries review_id & category_id & the sync was successfull. Later i added another column "affiliate_id" to the pivot table & the sync was successfull but with multiple entries. Let me explain
Here's my controller for review -
$result->affiliates()->sync($aff_ids);
$result->category()->sync($product);
The above code is creating sperate pivot entries -
Pivot Table -
+-----------+-------------+--------------+
| review_Id | category_id | affiliate_Id |
+-----------+-------------+--------------+
| 1 | null | 1 |
| 1 | 1 | null |
+-----------+-------------+--------------+
Is the above pivot table correct or should i create seperate pivot tables for affiliates & categories ?
If the pivot table is not correct & if there is no need for seperate pivot tables then what i want to achieve is -
+-----------+-------------+--------------+
| review_Id | category_id | affiliate_Id |
+-----------+-------------+--------------+
| 1 | 1 | 1 |
+-----------+-------------+--------------+
The affiliate_id column can have have multiple entries so final result i want is -
+-----------+-------------+--------------+
| review_Id | category_id | affiliate_Id |
+-----------+-------------+--------------+
| 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 1 | 1 | 3 |
+-----------+-------------+--------------+

Answer 1

use withPivot;
in Review Model class
public function category()
{
return $this->belongsToMany(Category::class)->withPivot('affiliate_id');
}
Then
foreach ($categories as $category) {
$category_id_array[$category->id] = ['affiliate_id' => $affiliate->id];
}
//Insert into offence_photo table
$review->category()->sync($category_id_array, false);//dont delete old entries= false